A Report on Our September Community Survey
Last Month we asked how you feel about your hometown and here is what you had to say
Back on September 19th, this publication announced that it was going to offer readers a chance to participate in it’s second community survey. This effort followed up on June’s effort to gauge how the community feels things are going here in our hometown.
You can read about the June survey and the results of that effort here:
This survey was open for two weeks, and this publication received 42 responses from folks living in the Troy (45373) Zip Code. It may not seem like a massive number, but trust us, it's statistically significant for a community of 26,000. The margin of error for this survey is 15%, which means every percentage we're giving you has that wiggle room at a 95% confidence level - which is an industry standard for surveys like this.
Right Track and Wrong Direction
One of the questions asked in the survey was the direction people felt the nation, the state and the community were headed. For the nation, 17% believe we're on the right track, while a whopping 67% think we're headed in the wrong direction, which is identical to the same numbers back in June. As for the state, 33% feel it's on the right track (an 11% improvement over June) and 52% say it's going the wrong way. And for our City of Troy, well, 26% think we're on the right track (a significant 14% improvement over June), while 55% feel we're going the wrong direction. Much better than the 81% wrong direction figure that was registered in June. Not exactly positive numbers, but better numbers from the previous survey.
Outlook On The Future
The survey also wanted to know your outlook on the future and it's a bit of a mixed bag. Some folks (5%) are extremely confident that things will get better, while 29% are somewhat confident. On the other hand, 29% aren't too sure and think things might get worse, and 7% are really not confident at all – they believe things will definitely get worse. These figures are a bit better than June, but show a general lack of hope in the community’s future.
How We Feel About Our Community
But even with all the uncertainties, most of our respondents still have a positive affinity towards our community which is very positive. 60% love our community, 29% like it, and only 5% don't seem to have any emotional attachment. We do have a small group (7%) who don't quite like our hometown.
Attributes and Challenges
The survey also asked individuals to list what they believed the three biggest attributes and the three biggest challenges facing the community as a whole. Word clouds were developed to show the open-ended answers people provided.
Atrribute Word Clouds
Challenge Word Clouds
Overall, survey respondents expressed that our neighbors, our downtown, the park system and the school district are positives. Residents are also concerned about the lack of communcation, executive leadership from the city and the need for newer school buidings.
What do you think?
Perhaps you were one of the 42 individuals that participated in the survey. Maybe you are surprised by the results. Let us know what you think about this survey in the comment section and if you find the Civic Capacity Newsletter helpful - please share it with those you know! Together, we can make our community even better!